Rare Books

Under the sea-wind : a naturalist's picture of ocean life

Image not available

Description: Celebrating the mystery and beauty of birds and sea creatures in their natural habitat, Under the Sea-Wind, Rachel Carson's first book and her personal favorite, is the early masterwork of one of America's greatest nature writers. Evoking the special mystery and beauty of the shore and the open sea, its limitless vistas and twilight depths. Carson's astonishingly intimate, unforgettable portrait captures the delicate negotiations of an ingeniously calibrated ecology.
Type: Rare Books(Opens in new tab)
Publication date: 1941.
Call number: 642380
Creator: Carson, Rachel (1907-1964)(Opens in new tab)
Provenance: Purchased from First Place Books, September 2024. With signature of W. Alexander on front fly-leaf and on back cover dated Nov. 1945.

Typee : a peep at Polynesian life during a four months' residence in a valley of the Marquesas

Rare Books

Describes the adventures of a sailor who jumps ship at a south sea island inhabited by cannibals, a voyage around Polynesia, and a quest for an elusive beauty among the islands of a tropical archipelago.

620532

Image not available

Two years before the mast; : a personal narrative of life at sea

Rare Books

Richard Henry Dana (1815-1882) of Boston left his studies at Harvard in 1834 in the hope that a sea voyage would aid his failing eyesight. He shipped out of Boston as a common seaman on board the brig Pilgrim bound for the Pacific, and returned to Massachusetts two years later. Completing his education, Dana became a leader of the American bar, an expert on maritime law, and a life-long advocate of the rights of the merchant seamen he had come to know on the Pilgrim and other vessels. Two years before the mast (1911) is based on the diary Dana kept while at sea. First published in 1841, it is one of America's most famous accounts of life at sea. It contains a rare and detailed account of life on the California coast a decade before the Gold Rush revolutionized the region's culture and society. Dana chronicles stops at the ports of Monterey, San Pedro, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Santa Clara. He describes the lives of sailors in the ports and their work of hide-curing on the beaches, and he gives close attention to the daily life of the peoples of California: Hispanic, Native American, and European.

496906b

Image not available

Life on the Ocean Wave: Reminiscences of My Voyages Around the World [typescript]

Manuscripts

The volume is Charlotte A. Babcock's reminiscences of her five years at sea (1851-1856) with her husband Captain David S. Babcock aboard the ships Swordfish and Young America. She gives detailed descriptions of San Francisco, Hawaii, Canton (Guangzhou), China, Hong Kong, Bombay, Manila, and Singapore. She also discusses the people she met, parties she attended, and the activities of the sailors and passengers on board her husband's ships. Also included is a sketch of the ship Young America by Charlotte A. Babcock

mssHM 63954

Image not available

Jelly-fish, star-fish, and sea urchins. : Being a research on primitive nervous systems

Rare Books

"Among the most beautiful, as well as the most common, of the marine animals which are to be met with upon our coasts are the jelly-fish and the starfish. Scarcely any one is so devoid of the instincts either of the artist or of the naturalist as not to have watched these animals with blended emotions of the aesthetic and the scientific--feeling the beauty while wondering at the organization. How many of us who live for most of the year in the fog and dust of large towns enjoy with the greater zest our summer's holiday at the seaside? And in the memories of most of us is there not associated with the picture of breaking waves and sea-birds floating indifferently in the blue sky or on the water still more blue, the thoughts of many a ramble among the weedy rocks and living pools, where for the time being we all become naturalists, and where those who least know what they are likely to find in their search are most likely to approach the keen happiness of childhood? If so, the image of the red sea-stars bespangling a mile of shining sand, or decorating the darkness of a thousand grottoes, must be joined with the image, no less vivid, of those crystal globes pulsating with life and gleaming with all the colours of the rainbow, which are perhaps the most strange, and certainly in my estimation the most delicately lovely creatures in the world"--Introduction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)

658567

Image not available

Jelly-fish, star-fish, and sea urchins. : Being a research on primitive nervous systems

Rare Books

658568

Image not available

New and Correct Map of the Whole World, shewing the situation of the Principal Parts, Viz the Oceans, Kingdoms, Rivers, Capes, Ports, Mountains, Woods, Trade Winds, Monsoons, Variation of the Compass, Climats, &c. With the most remarkable tracks of the Bold Attempts which have been made to Find out the North East & North West Passages. The Projection of this Map is Call'd Mercator's the Design is to make it Useful both for Land and Sea. And it is laid Down with all possible care, According to the Newest and Most Exact Observations by Herman Moll Geographer, 1719

Visual Materials

Kashnor notes, "A celebrated old map, showing California as an island, with the supposed Strait of Annian." Several explanations and advertisements at length. Large cartouche. Large cartouche by L. Cheron. Submaps of North Pole and chart of magnetic variation [by Halley]. Also track of Woodes Rogers from Cabo San Lucas to Guam with magnetic variations.. Prime meridian: Ferro. Relief: pictorial. Graphic Scale: leagues. Projection: Mercator. Printing Process: Copper engraving. Other Features: CartoucheSub-maps. Verso Text: MS notes: E50 No. 2 Mus Bk St 105/257 257/105.

105:257 M

Under the sea-wind : a naturalist's picture of ocean life

Opening Hours

Admission Info and Tickets

You might also be interested in

Typee : a peep at Polynesian life during a four months' residence in a valley of the Marquesas

Two years before the mast; : a personal narrative of life at sea

Life on the Ocean Wave: Reminiscences of My Voyages Around the World [typescript]

Jelly-fish, star-fish, and sea urchins. : Being a research on primitive nervous systems

Jelly-fish, star-fish, and sea urchins. : Being a research on primitive nervous systems